


Time and Tide

by ineptshieldmaid



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Angst, Australia, Character of Color, Crusades, Genderswap, M/M, Margaret Thatcher - Freeform, Melisande of Jerusalem, Multi, Reincarnation, convict transportation, future!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-21
Updated: 2010-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 13:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineptshieldmaid/pseuds/ineptshieldmaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He found Morgana in the last place he expected to meet any of them. That might have been why he’d chosen it, but to be honest, he’d given up expecting to meet his old friends years ago. Decades. Maybe even centuries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of a present for [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=clavicularity)[**clavicularity**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=clavicularity), who said there was a certain kind of AU fic she wanted. I'm not sure that this is quite it, but this is what happened. Many many thanks and oaths of fealty to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/agenttrojie/profile)[**agenttrojie**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/agenttrojie/) for beta-reading.

He found Morgana in the last place he expected to meet any of them. That might have been why he’d chosen it, but to be honest, he’d given up expecting to meet his old friends years ago. Decades. Maybe even centuries.

He was buying books – just one book, actually, although he picked up seven or eight, filling in time before the next bus. It was hot – baking forty-degree weather, dry and dusty. Merlin felt it not as discomfort, but as a vaguely unreal sort of feeling: a nagging reminder that he did not belong here. Morgana had a fan set up beside the till, as the open doors undid all the good work of air-conditioning. He was the only customer in her shop this close to closing time. She was watching him, as though she expected he had recognised her, and was ignoring her for his own reasons.

Merlin hadn’t recognised her, until she spoke.

‘Haven’t you had enough to do with dragons?’ She rang the book up on the till anyway. Merlin stared at it – _Guards! Guards!_ , one of his workmates had been pestering him to read it – and at her.

‘You’ve been here a month, and you haven’t come to see me?’ She slipped the book into a bag and handed him his change. Merlin hadn’t even realised they were in the same town. He supposed she could see it in his face, because she looked disappointed, and then something shuttered behind her eyes.

He was ready to walk out, take his bus home, take another bus, take any bus, take a bus and then a plane and go _away_.

‘We should do lunch,’ Morgana says. She said it almost off-handedly, as though he were an old friend and she was discharging her social obligations. Merlin says yes anyway. They agree on a place and time, and Merlin takes his book and takes his bus home.

~

The last time he’d shared a meal with Morgana, she’d tried to poison him. Nearly a millenium ago, and half a world from here. This was one of the lives when they'd been close enough, geographically speaking, to meet occasionally and compare histories. Lifetime after lifetime they did this, and Merlin and Morgana were finding that they had to _remind_ the others, that less and less came with them each time. Morgana... Morgana's memory was as slippery as ever, but Merlin needed someone to keep track with him. Merlin did not forget, did not come and go as the others did: he was always here. For everything.

‘How’s.. Yvetta?’ Merlin had asked, his tongue tripping over Gwen's given name. They were were in Morgana's garden. Her knights hovered a few yards away, cautious of her reputation, and, no doubt, her personal safety. Merlin was by no means a powerful man, but he was well enough known as one of Baldwin's men. Morgana's minders no doubt wondered what she was playing at - there was little reason for her to want to sway a knight of such little standing.

‘She’s happy,’ Morgana said. ‘I… the abbey suits her, I think.’

No matter if it suited her, Merlin thought. She’d precious little choice, but at least Morgana had endowed the convent well.

‘Have you seen Arthur?’

Merlin shrugged. ‘Not since we took the city.’ Morgana blinked, and Merlin realised she didn’t understand he meant _this_ city, the one for which they were dying all their lives. It was her home now, but not his. Not his and not Arthur’s. ‘He died when we took Jerusalem,’ Merlin clarified. 'I haven't seen him since. It might be too soon.'

Arthur had died – not on the field before the city, but in the crush as they entered the place, in the shambles as they turned out buildings and sanctuaries. Someone had driven the handle of their sword into his nose, splintering the bone and driving it into his brain. Merlin hadn’t even seen who it was. And there was nothing he could have done, anyway, save with his sword or his own two hands, because Arthur had made him promise.

‘Promise me you won’t – you mustn’t…’ This was one of those lives where Arthur knew. Maybe not all of it, Merlin couldn’t remember what he’d told him or when. But he knew. And he made Merlin promise, because ‘we’re fighting for Christendom now. We’re fighting for – oh, _Merlin_ ,’ (and it was odd that he used that name) ‘the most beautiful city on earth. The most _holy_. And you mustn’t – you mustn’t. It isn’t right. We overcome in the strength of the Lord.’

‘God wills it,’ Merlin had murmured, but he knew what _he_ wanted. He wanted England, and he wanted Camelot, and Arthur at the Round Table and all they’d worked for. Merlin thought that if Arthur wanted this place, Jerusalem, Christendom, salvation, then it was probably the nearest thing he’d find to everything that had gone missing. So he had stayed, even though Arthur had gone. There would be time enough to find him later on.

And then Morgana tried to poison him. It was in the wine – such a predictable choice. It hadn’t worked. Merlin was nigh impervious to poisons, be they administered by enemies, erstwhile friends, or himself. He thought Morgana probably knew that. He was rather ill for several days, but that had not prevented him from joining her son in the field.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth. Arthur had cared about this place, about this kingdom, but it wasn’t England. It wasn’t England, and it was divided against itself, and Merlin didn’t know if it was Morgana’s fault or Baldwin’s fault or no one’s fault at all. He might have been fighting to reunite it. He might have been fighting to destroy it. If he only waited long enough, it would probably destroy itself.

For centuries after that, Merlin was a priest, or a farmer; an artisan or a merchant: but never again a warrior.

~

The café was cavernous, red and dimly-lit. Morgana found them a table near the low stage – right up next to it, in fact. The lights around its base put eerie shadows in her hair. This was supposed to be a dyke meeting spot, which wouldn't necessarily surprise him, for Morgana - but then, the patrons looked to be your average assortment of students and purported artistes. Merlin fiddled with the clip on his wallet. He ought to ask her - something. Anything. Did she have a girlfriend? A boyfriend? Any pets? Where had she grown up? Were her latest parents living? What music did she like, what books did she read, could she even bear to watch the evening news?

‘How old are you?’ he blurted. Morgana’s eyes blinked slowly, the lashes dark and heavy against her skin.

‘A lady never tells,’ she said primly, and poured them both tea.

‘Tell me what you’re doing here,’ she ordered, when his teacup was halfway to his mouth. He started, and it slopped onto his sleeve.

‘I’m on a contract,’ he said, truthfully. ‘Mapping Australia’s water resources. I, um. I spend a lot of time changing the direction of tiny arrows on small creeks on very large maps.’

‘What. Are. You. Doing. Here?’ Morgana spoke very slowly, as if he were hard of hearing, or perhaps stupid.

‘I’m working,’ Merlin answered, and he found it hard to meet her gaze. 'There are some very strangely named watercourses in this country, have you noticed that? _Dead Finish Creek_. Who names a creek _Dead Finish_? And then there's the Pieman River, and let's not mention the Cockrage river, only I think that turned last one out to be a typo.' He was babbling. He knew he was babbling. Morgana knew he was babbling. It probably made him look guilty. Or stupid. Definitely stupid.

‘Merlin,' Morgana snapped her fingers in front of his eyes, and the inflection she put on his name was so perfectly, horribly like Arthur's. 'Where have you been? Is this about that incident with the poison? Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin, I knew it wouldn’t kill you.’

‘It’s not about that.’ Merlin sighed. It _wasn’t_. He’d seen her since then, anyway, even if he hadn’t been foolish enough to eat with her.

~

The last time would have been, oh, some time in the seventeenth century. They were all commoners that time around, except for Arthur, although Morgana had done well enough. Merlin had seen her once, after he’d been in the one place for too many years and people were starting to wonder why he never seemed to age. He’d had to do it carefully, that time – couldn’t just up and walk away, not with Gwen’s reputation at stake. So they’d staged his death (he and Arthur – Gwen had never needed to know, so Merlin never told her), and he’d left her with her son to run the farm and enough money put aside that she need not take another husband. He’d hoped she would, but she needn’t.

After that, he’d gone to London. Morgana was a baker’s daughter, much younger than Gwen. She’d known him at once – _I dreamed about you_ , she’d said. Merlin told her everything, and it felt good to tell someone. He’d told her about everyone, since last he’d seen her. Gaius had been a Lollard priest. Uther sailed in the English Armada. Lancelot had been a travelling player, in Provence, of all places. Arthur was – Arthur. Young, about Morgana’s age. Headstrong and beautiful and far better loved than his elder brother. Merlin would have liked to hope that Arthur would stay at home, manage his brother's estates, hunt game, and stay safe. For just one lifetime. But of course, his brother would buy him a commission, and he would die nobly and heroically and stupidly once again, because Merlin wouldn't be there to watch over him.

He’d told Morgana about Gwen, about her son (in his head, Merlin never called him _their_ son, although he loved the boy dearly). He’d told Morgana that Gwen never knew – that the last lifetime in which she’d known had been in Jerusalem, when she was Morgana’s little sister. And Morgana had bit her lip, and she’d understood. He’d kissed her, buried his hands in her hair and kissed her until they were both dizzy and clinging to one another. He would have tried to take her to bed, but she’d said _I can’t_ , and he didn’t know if that meant ‘I don’t want to’ or if it meant that, even here, a baker’s daughter, Morgana knew the extent and limits of her worth in this life.

~

‘Where were you?’ Morgana demanded. ‘Where were you in 1789?’ Merlin shrugged. ‘Did you even know I’d been transported?’

Merlin hadn’t known.

‘Ten miserable months on a stinking convict ship,’ she spat at him. ‘Forty years as some colonial whore, in and out of the Female Factory, alone here at the arse end of the universe. Two lifetimes since then and you never even noticed I was gone.’

Merlin swallowed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he genuinely was. ‘I… I didn’t know you’d need me.’ The others he could forgive himself for – they wouldn’t miss him, would never know there was a Merlin to be missed. Gaius sometimes remembered, but he and Merlin hadn’t been close, not since Gaius decided he had no interest in Edmund – Arthur – anymore, and thought he could do better with a Viking king.

Morgana’s mouth twisted. ‘I’m not Arthur,’ she said, quietly. ‘I remember, Merlin.’

‘Where is Arthur?’ Merlin hated himself for asking. He didn’t want to know.

‘I was hoping you would have…’ Morgana gestured vaguely, and almost thwacked her glass into the waitress who was bringing their food. ‘I thought that was… why else are you here?’

Merlin shrugged. ‘I told you. I’m working. I’d never been an Australian. I thought I’d give it a try.’

Morgana said nothing, and turned to her sandwich, eyes impossibly sad. Merlin poked at his nachos, watching the cheese stretch and bubble. He hadn’t been particularly hungry, and by now he was feeling vaguely ill.

~

Merlin knew where he'd been in 1789. He ought to have noticed that Morgana had gone - he had noticed when Gwen had died the year before, and old, happy woman, temporally out of step with them all. But in 1789, Merlin had been too wrapped up in himself - in _Arthur_ \- to notice anything else. And after... well, the relentless sense of loss had swallowed up everything else.

He had been in Cambridge. He had been in Cambridge, with Arthur. Just boys, together again, getting into scrapes and out of them and nothing to come between them. No Uther, no magic (never any magic), no wars or intrigue. Not even the fragile, impossible distinction of class: Merlin came and went as he would, had long since mastered the knack of walking easily amongst the gentry as easily as the commons.

They had been boys again, and Arthur knew _nothing_ and Merlin had forgotten how to be young again. Arthur had boundless energy and 'fun', to Merlin, was a riddle to be solved, something to _achieve_ , something he had lost or never had and could not reclaim. Arthur made Merlin tired and angry and impossibly lonely. He felt like Gaius, always cautious, always keeping secrets. He stared at Arthur whenever he could, tried to touch him wherever he could, asked questions just to hear him talk. He didn't know what he was trying to find: his king, perhaps, his destiny; or the friend he could have had, were it not for destiny.

So when Arthur said to him, off-handedly, 'Oy, Wooton, who d'you think you're gazing after like a lovesick girl?' Merlin had missed his step. All the cutting responses he would once have made, the ones that said _certainly not you, how ridiculous_ but also said _you are the most perfect thing I know and I am sixteen and invincible and I can afford to be flippant because I don't yet know what it feels like to lose you_ \- they would not come, and instead he said hoarsely, _you_. And then somehow he had Arthur pressed up against the wall and it was -

it was nothing like it ought to have been. If they were both boys, perhaps. If they'd done this ten, fifteen lifetimes ago. If Arthur weren't young, and stupid, and careless - if he were less innocent and more arrogant, if he had _any idea_ what he was to Merlin... If Merlin had the strength to walk away, instead of staying and wanting until Arthur hated him. If Merlin had learnt to lie, learnt to hide his need as well as he hid the past.

By the time Morgana set foot in Sydney town, Merlin had done with kings and with beautiful, impossible youths.

~

‘Do you… Do you want to know how the others are?’

Merlin found that yes, as long as Arthur wasn’t involved, he did want to know. ‘You’ve seen them?’ Morgana nodded. ‘How? I mean, in person, or…’

‘In person,’ she said. ‘I travelled a lot, before this degree. I...’ she stared at the tabletop. 'I never see the future anymore. Only the past. But not - not things I ought to know.' Merlin wondered what that meant. He had a feeling it meant she knew where he had been in 1789.

‘Gwen’s a man this time,’ Morgana said, in a rush. ‘And he – he knows. I told him. He’d like to see you, but I don’t… well, you two were…’

‘So were you,’ Merlin said, with a little smile, and to his amusement, Morgana’s whole face flamed red. ‘Did it… does it bother you? It’s not just Gwen, you know. Uther was…’

‘Uther is,’ Morgana corrected. ‘She’s still alive, you know.’ Merlin did know. He’d even broken his resolution of disengagement, and in the early ‘80s he’d been on the Downing Street housekeeping staff. Just to… see. He didn’t know what he’d hoped to find, but he’d left there more confused than he went in.

‘She’s in San Francisco,’ Morgana went on, and it took Merlin a second to realise that she meant Gwen, not the Iron Lady. ‘She’s – he’s married now. They got married just before the election,’ she adds, as though that means something.

‘Oh,’ Merlin says. ‘Nice girl? No one we know, is it?’

‘No,’ Morgana says. ‘And it’s a man. His name is Tristan, and I feel like I ought to know him.’

‘Probably just a co-incidence of the name,’ Merlin says. ‘Did you ever see Wagner’s _Tristan und Isolde_?’

‘Did you see that movie _King Arthur_?’ Morgana fired back, and Merlin winced. No, no he had not. He’d drunk himself into a stupor the night it opened, though, and again when he found the DVD release posters plastered all over his local video shop.

‘Lancelot?’ he asked, thinking of the ridiculous Welsh fellow on the movie posters.

‘He’s dead,’ Morgana said. ‘I think it’s too soon to find him again. He... he and Gwen were together, for a while. In New York, I think. He died about fifteen years ago, before Gwen – Gary, I mean – moved to San Francisco.’ Merlin noticed that her hands were shaking, ever so slightly. ‘They were bashed – both of them. Gwen walks with a limp now, they did his knee in. And they killed Lance. And _I didn’t know_.’

They fell silent. Merlin wanted to ask her something, something _normal_. Which was - ridiculous. He was profoundly unqualified for normal.

Morgana finished her sandwich and saw that Merlin had made no progress on his meal.

‘I should go,’ she said.

‘I. I’m sorry,’ Merlin said, again.

Morgana shook her head. ‘Don’t be.’

They walked out into the glaring sunlight together. Morgana headed for her car, and Merlin turned toward the bus stop.

‘You should visit Gwen,’ Morgana said, before he was out of earshot.

‘Give her – give him…’ Merlin’s eyes went blurry, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He meant to say give him my best regards, but what came out was: ‘Tell him I love him. I always have.’

Morgana choked, and reached out a hand for him, but Merlin stepped back. He turned his back and left her standing on the kerb.


End file.
